Help! I Lost my Cell... Again

Don’t sweat it, Meg, I think to myself. So you lost your phone. Again.

You’ll find it.

Call it. I dial. No ring. I panic. OMG, I turned the ringer off at dinner.

I console myself thinking: I’ll find it but no problem, my information is in the cloud--whatever that means. I can always buy a new phone. Ugh! The expense. And I don’t like change.

I’m frantic. I have to find it. It’s too late to call the restaurant where I dined in case it fell out of my purse. In the meantime…

I start the hunt.

Step 1: I unearth every paper in my house and rifle through dozens of piles of books and magazines.

No phone.

Step 2: I crawl under the bed and bump my head hard. I’m injured, I moan, and still no phone. Don’t sweat it, I tell myself. Just chill. At that point, I have little choice as I am almost unconscious from the head bump.

Step 3: Sit and think about something else. That’s when I’ll find it. I know it. If only Google could help in this search.

Step 4: I retrace my steps. I jump up and go through my coat pockets again.

Step 5: I look under sofas and chairs. Of course I can’t see since I realize the glasses I wear for nearsightedness are missing. Now I have two items to find. While slithering around on the floor on my stomach like I’m doing some Army basic training exercise, I find a half-finished gray scarf my mother was knitting for my sister. I happen upon a large box of beads without any wires or strings or whatever you’re supposed to put beads on. I see a basket containing some old Time and Newsweek magazines just gathering dust. And I spot a NYC metro ticket that was never used. I look at the date and realize it expired two years ago. It’s probably another thing I thought I lost.

Step 6: I go through my drawers. Look in the washing machine. The trash. The refrigerator. Kitchen cabinets. I am not going to get discouraged. I keep looking and am convinced I’ll be successful. I grab my purse again and dump all the contents. The purse is so large it could hold the entire continent of Africa. It has to be in there with my glasses. I shake its contents onto the rug. Not there. But almost everything else I own is. Oh, there’s my spare key.

Realization. Losing things has become a big problem of late. I misplace my keys. I cannot ever remember where I park in a lot and end up wandering around panicked for several minutes. I’ve even had the security guard drive me around in his little cart trying to spot it. It’s so humiliating because everyone who sees us knows that I’m some clueless 70-year-old woman who can’t figure out where her car is. I imagine those people pointing and suppressing a smug laugh. There is a silver lining, however. Because we’re driving around for 20+ minutes, I’ve made a new friend and learn almost everything about the guard’s life. (Often more than I’d like to know) And then I shout: “Hey, there’s my car!” And horrors. We’re back where we started.

Oh this is becoming epidemic. I lose everything. I put my coffee mug down and can’t remember where. I misplace my glasses at least five times a day. I put on my makeup and think, where’s my lipstick. I look in the mirror and I’ve put lipstick on my lips. It must be on the table right in front of me, but I don’t see it until it rolls off and falls on the floor.

What’s that all about? Is it old age? Too much on my mind? Do I have early Alzheimer’s and soon will be at the mercy of my children to care for me, assuming I remember they’re my children? Am I not focused? Yes, that’s it, I tell myself when I put something down, focus. But there are the interruptions. I get sidetracked. A friend sends an email with some bad news, the doorbell rings and I run to the door, I stop to listen to something on the news. Now, what was I doing? Oh, yeah. Is there therapy for this? Someone could make a fortune off me.

Step 7: I have an idea. From now on, I’m going to use my cell to take photos of where I put things and park. Big problem, I have to find my cell in order to do so.

This is getting worse.

And then I sit down at the desk in my study to de-stress, put on my glasses that were on my head all the time (go figure), and voila! there’s my cell. I congratulate myself and know that I must be prepared to lose it again, to misplace my glasses, my keys, my coffee cup, my car, make up, my whatever. Knowing this, I will allocate time in my schedule just to search for “lost” items. And I’ll just keep pushing and searching and never give up until I find them even when they are right under my nose.